Os monstros de Hitler: Uma história sobrenatural do Terceiro Reich

by Eric Kurlander, Gisele Eberspächer (translator)

Neste trabalho rigoroso de pesquisa histórica, Eric Kurlander desfaz mitos sobre a ligação do nazismo a forças sobrenaturais ao mesmo tempo que encontra inúmeras evidências de como o Partido Nacional-Socialista surgiu em um meio que acreditava em teorias da conspiração delirantes e que, depois, passou a alimentar uma gama de irracionalidades.

O Terceiro Reich, desde a gênese do Partido Nacional-Socialista dos Trabalhadores Alemães até o avanço das tropas por território europeu, sempre manteve uma relação complexa com a religião. Se, por um lado, Hitler e seus comparsas descartavam o cristianismo por não fornecer uma ligação forte com a raça e a terra, por outro, o nazismo surgiu em um meio onde fermentavam ideias ocultistas — das mais populares, como astrologia e teosofia, às mais bizarras, como a cosmogonia glacial —, nutridas e modificadas de diferentes formas para servir como uma base espiritual do movimento.
Alvo de muitas especulações sensacionalistas, a ligação entre o nazismo e as chamadas "ciências ocultas" já foi tema de histórias em quadrinhos e filmes populares. Os monstros de Hitler, trabalho de fôlego de Eric Kurlander, desvia dos exageros e mostra com vasta pesquisa a conexão real entre seitas com crenças abstrusas e o mais alto escalão do Partido.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Politics, Occult, Religion, Germany

839 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2017

About the author

Eric Kurlander is a professor of history at Stetson University. He received his BA from Bowdoin College, and his MA and PhD from Harvard University. Kurlander is a specialist in modern German history and particularly of the Nazi era about which he has written three books.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are expecting to learn about the Nazi’s quest to discover the Spear of Destiny or the Holy Grail, or details about their expeditions to Tibet, this book does not offer that. It begins with the pre-Nazi “…view that the paranormal was a legitimate object of scientific inquiry and power.” The book outlines the progression of occultist groups with racial and anti-Semetic leanings leading to the formalization of NSDAP: “…the evolution of the volkisch-esoteric movement from a collection of impotent splinter associations into a mass party capable of drawing support from across the entire social spectrum of the Weimar Republic. …the NSDAP drew upon a broader supernatural imaginary which spoke to a diverse social milieu that had lost faith in secular liberalism, traditional Christian conservatism, and Marxist conservatism.” Basically, it outlines why the German nation was duped by Nazism and how Hitler was able to influence the masses not through his rhetoric, but by his charisma (magic?). “…the Nazis could not have come to power without the remarkable conflation of politico-diplomatic challenges and socioeconomic crises faced by the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933.”

The book is bogged down by lots of abbreviated organizations within the Nazi hierarchy, contradictory policies regarding the occult, and dozens of individuals of varying ranks. In short, it reads like a textbook or dissertation. It was very informative, and there were a few intriguing aspects, like the belief “…that Tibet was the mystic refuge of the Aryans.” Though, “…the Nazi fascination was merely the tip of the iceberg.” “For Tibetans… the positive relationship with the Third Reich emerged out of a largely pragmatic search for a powerful European ally against China.”

I will include a few more quotes that illustrate the general tone of the book. Regarding the final solution: “Auschwitz… was the border scientific byproduct of the Nazis’ faith-based vision of racial purification and Aryan utopia.” “The Second World War was neither caused nor directed primarily by occult designs. But many aspects of the war were influenced or determined by folklore, border science, and the broader Nazi supernatural imaginary.” “…the Nazi movement had closer ties to occult, border scientific, and pagan-mythological ideas and doctrines than any mass political party.” And that is why it took me well over month to read this hefty tome.

I received a complimentary copy of this book via the Amazon Vine program.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that I didn't actually finish this book, even though I enjoyed the parts I read; and that's because, even though the book deals with the ultra-fascinating subject of the Nazi Party and their obsession with the occult, looking not just at the war years but at everything in the entire German culture from the Victorian Age until the '30s that led to this kind of obsession, the book itself is actually written in the dry, reference-filled style of an academic dissertation, and I could only take about a hundred pages of that before the tedium finally got the best of me. Worth picking up just for the look at the events that led to the rise of the Nazis in the first place, but you'll need a bigger tolerance for academic writing than me if you expect to get all the way through it.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This controversial book is well worth noting (and reading). It is undoubtedly well researched. It contains, in one place, a great deal of evidence for the irrationality that has invested the Nazi era with such black glamour in subsequent popular culture.

It is also measured when it describes particular claims - such as those related to Nazi flying saucers - giving us sound documented background and excellent sources. We can feel broadly confident that Kurlander is giving us a picture of the true state of affairs in each case.

The flaws are,'strategic' not tactical. The 'tactical' history is excellent. The evidence for flaws arises out of a clinical reading of his interpretation of the facts, culminating in an epilogue that collapses into the standard 'moral panic' amongst liberal intellectuals about our current situation.

Kurlander has broken a cardinal rule of historiography at this final point - he forgets the uniqueness of the past. History enables us to form opinions about the present in preparation for the future but it cannot teach us lessons about our present because we too are in a unique situation.

But this final weakness might be overlooked as just part of 'late liberal capitalist bourgeois anxiety' if one was not struck throughout the book by Kurlander's constant over-egging of his pudding. This starts with the title. 'Supernatural' begs too many questions of definition.

If 'supernatural' simply means an appeal to ideas that go beyond facts and science, then all regimes are guilty of this in some form, notably theocratic ones. Burleigh in this regard may well be right that National Socialism developed the character of a secular religion. This is certainly arguable.

A great deal of the book is taken up with two themes that do not allow easy acceptance of the term 'supernatural' as unique to the Nazis as political movement - the extent of bad scientific thinking and the manner in which the Nazis exploited inherent German expressions of irrationalism.

In the first case, bad science is just bad science. It does not always mean that the bad scientist is looking to the supernatural but only that he has allowed social or cultural norms to get in the way of good science.

In the second case, if a society is generally irrational, then a movement that arises out of it cannot be singled out as peculiarly irrational unless it is consistently (across the board) more irrational than the general community.

National socialism would have to be demonstrated to be an ideology that was consistently irrational (not just inept or stupid) in a way that was more irrational than the community from which it came to justify its uniqueness in this respect. I cannot see that this has been demonstrated here.

Kurlander is clearly right that German irrationalism does seem to have been more intense than that of other contemporary nations, perhaps analogous to the burst of New Age thinking in the US much later, but surges of irrationality are not new in Western culture.

It could be argued that Germany was just unlucky in that the irrationalisms of Europe's urban intellectuals going through their own crises at the end of the nineteenth century got magnified by popular media and crises of defeat and inflation in the 1920s.

This means that it is very plausible that national socialism operated in more irrational ways than did its opponents but, still, we have the problem that it also acted very rationally indeed, most of its use of technology was sound and its ideology had its own grim rational logic.

What is true is that other cultures did not see the emergence of a political force able to exploit cultural irrationality in the way that national socialism did. Yet, while the Nazi leadership cadres shared many of these irrational attitudes, the key word here is exploit.

There is no reason and much evidence that Hitler and his Nazis were immensely adept at the political exploitation of something that pre-existed the movement. Indeed, all references to Goebbels suggests a man using community irrationality for very pragmatic political ends.

As the book unfolds, the references to Hitler, Heydrich, Bormann and Rosenberg tend to suggest that we are just dealing with yet another ideology (albeit one with a particularly malign aspect) which adopted the 'supernatural' in fits and starts according to need and often with cynicism.

Indeed, Heydrich, Rosenberg and Bormann seem to have found it tiresome more frequently than not. As Kurlander ably points out, these three seem to have been more concerned to ensure a pre-existing general hysteria became owned by the Party than promoting it further.

I saw little evidence (outside particular closed circles) of attempts to drive greater irrationalism into the community, just a desire to control existing propensities. Supernatural paganism seems to have been simply a case of replacing one supernatural belief system (Christianity) with another.

I am afraid, while recognising the different moral values involved, I cannot honestly see Nazi paganism and 'German Christianity' as inherently more supernatural than Catholicism, for example.

Too many Nazi leaders get no or minimal mention in the book (notably Goering, Keitel, Raeder, Donitz, Ribbentrop, Funk and Speer) for us to believe that 'supernaturalism' was general. The suprernatural appears rarely in accounts by other historians for good reason.

Over and over again, the 'total nuttiness' argument seems to rely on too few suspects representing only a component of the whole rather than the whole, largely the exceptionally potty circle around Himmler whose Ahnenerbe antics have enlivened popular culture ever since.

This is where the 'border science' comes in and the nonsense about super weapons that appeared at the tail end of the war. The account is true enough and resources were wasted but it forgets that the vast majority of war operations were conducted rationally, using 'real' science and technology.

The fact that a part of the German Navy, in desperation, permitted magical pendulums to try to find ships at sea suggests an openness to the supernatural but a) this was clearly an operational outlier and b) fits with the general model of a culture prone to the magical of which Nazis were a part.

The Nazi regime made major errors of judgment but these were the errors of judgement all regimes could make, especially those under huge pressures of time and resources and with a polycratic inability to make sound strategic judgements under the rule of one self-educated monomaniac.

The Nazis offered an ideological enterprise (ideology being as absurd as any religion) where part of the ideology involved ignorant misreadings of science, where the pursuit of power was highly rational in technique and which was embedded in a more irrational culture than average.

None of this suggests that the 'supernatural' was central to national socialism but only that (and this argument is accepted) it was an important component of the movement, used pragmatically for political purposes but also seriously held as true by a faction of it with power.

So much centres on Himmler and his circle in this respect that I would have no doubts that a Himmler-led (or Hess-led) Party would have been truly mad as the proverbial hatter and, yes, it is noted that Himmler and Hess were both second in power in their respective eras.

But they were not first-ranking. Hitler comes out as sympathetic to many 'supernatural' ideas (but no more than my Fulham-born grandfather who might have spoken of Mu or Lemuria), leaning on them only as tools for power or as a desperate fall-back position as the cataclysm approached.

And which Hitler are we speaking of? That of his public speeches or that of his 'table talk' whose provenance is dubious to say the least and is far from direct evidence of his views.

To be fair to Kurlander, he never fails to point out the more material causes of the disaster when it matters nor does he suggest that supernaturalism was the first cause or principle of National Socialism. My quarrel here is not with the facts but the emphasis, the implicit over-egging.

My old historical mentor Norman Stone used to say that national socialism resulted from the teaching of half-educated small town school masters. There is certainly merit in Kurlander reminding us that these petty intellectuals had some strange ideas.

But this was the milieu of Germany itself. German interpretations of theosophy (such as ariosophy) and bio-dynamic agriculture and a lagging understanding of science (including Darwinism) also competed with a high level of scientific capability and pragmatism.

Bad science can come from anywhere as we know from the infamous Lysenko case in the Soviet Union as can evil experimentation - we know this from the experiments on syphilitic African-Americans and by the CIA in relation to mind control.

From this perspective, national socialism must be recognised as an outgrowth of the increased irrationalism of German culture (much as Kurlander demonstrates) but it cannot entirely be defined culturally solely in those terms otherwise Heydrich, Bormann and Speer could not have prospered.

In the end, when you separate the cultic nutters at the top and their acolytes in the SS and some specialised contexts, you find that the German volk are guilty of little more than bad science, moral turpitude and following stage magic and astrology.

Yes, as Kurlander makes clear, Nazi leaders left room for scientific astrology and magic in a way that would never happen with their opponents but that perhaps just meant that they were open-minded. I saw no evidence that most Nazis cared deeply about either.

History is complicated. Our villains steadfastly refuse to be villainous in all things just as the good guys turn out to have done some pretty vile things. The Nazis are no different. The ideological environmentalism and attitude to witch hunts might be said to put us to shame!

In the end, there are many reasons to vilify the Nazi regime but the biggest one, other than the inherent callousness of its ideology, is probably an essential strategic stupidity at multiple levels of which its border science and mythic hysteria are just two. It was a horrible accident of history.

On balance, the book is an excellent introduction to the facts of the matter whose interpretation beyond the closed circles outlined in the book should perhaps be handled sceptically.

Nazi Germany certainly had these irrational aspects, stronger than elsewhere, but its critical and specific importance to the regime, consistently held, beyond a generalised ideology shared by a much larger volkisch community, is not proven.

[Xanthi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I need to point out that the two star rating I’ve given this book does not mean I think this a bad book. It’s more due to the realisation that I was the wrong reader for it. You see, it wasn’t quite what I expected. It was dense, fairly dry and aimed more at scholars than general readers. It often felt like I was reading a very long PhD thesis.

[Bettie]

'

Did Hitler’s obsession with the occult lose him the war?: The Nazi war effort relied to an astonishing degree on dowsing, astrology and mysticism, as Eric Kurlander reveals

[David Akeroyd · Rating 2 out of 5]

More than 100 of the 400 or so pages of this book are notes which gives some sense of the approach the author took. It's very scholarly but also very repetitive. He repeats the same points and arguments over and over and never really goes in-depth on anything very interesting. I have to wonder if he had any say on the title for the book as it is far too sensational for the contents and over-promises.

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R1IN...

Hitler’s Monsters by Eric Kurland

This book follows the same path as David Luhrssen’s excellent Hammer of the Gods: The Thule Society and the Birth of Nazism. Both books are academic examinations of a topic that will tend to drive anyone with intellectual self-respect away, namely the putative “occult” background of National Socialism. Both books are solid academic exercises, and both solidly document their thesis that Nazis (and a lot of Germans) took occult nonsense very, very seriously.

Luhrssen’s book is probably better at tracing the Ur-history of the Thule society and the role it played in pre-Weimar politics. This book by Eric Kurland is better at tracing the German fascination with “border science” (as Kurland calls it.) Border science included things like “dousing” – more properly known as “geomancy” – which was often practiced with a pendulum and a map. The fascination with Geomancy extended to a German Navy project to track allied convoys and battleships in a large room with a representation of the Atlantic on the floor. Kurlander describes this exercise:

“The activities and location of the Pendulum Institute in Berlin were supposed to be secret. Within weeks of the department opening, however, it became widely known that the regime had enlisted the help of occultists in the war effort.256 The primary method employed at the headquarters was radiesthesia, meaning that a ‘large map of the Atlantic was spread out horizontally, with a one-inch toy battleship as test object’. Then a ‘pendulum, consisting of a cube of metal about one cubic centimetre and a short string, was swung above the battleship. If the pendulum reacted, it proved the presence of a true battleship at that location.’257”

According to Kurlander:

“Among the German Navy officials who were puzzled about this sudden shift in the battle of the Atlantic was the U-boat captain Hans Roeder, a science expert in the Navy Patent Office. An amateur pendulum dowser himself, Roeder was convinced the British were employing such means to locate German ships. As a countermeasure, Roeder suggested that the navy begin employing border scientific methods.246 Were Roeder operating in the Royal Navy, his suggestion to set up an officially sponsored Pendulum Institute would likely have been dismissed as outrageous. And yet Roeder was operating in the Third Reich, where many ranking party officials and military men were open to border scientific doctrines.247”

Of course, what did they have to lose? Suppose it worked? On the other hand, Kurlander documents how German susceptibility to magical thinking did create systemic problems throughout the war effort.

Nazi leaders, however, accepted occult border science. Hitler was fascinated with magic, which he understood as the manipulation of forces to control the masses. Kurlander observes:

“Indeed, with respect to perhaps the core element of occultism – magic – Hitler’s fascination was clear. Only recently has it come to light that he probably read a book on practising ‘magic’, the parapsychologist Ernst Schertel’s 1923 occult masterpiece, Magic: History, Theory, Practice.216 In this book Hitler appears to have underlined many passages that give us unique insight into his views about border science, occultism, and ‘magical thinking’ more generally. In the first section Hitler underscored the line: ‘All men of genius’ possessed the ability to harness ‘para-cosmical (demonic) forces’, which ‘can be combined with a lot of misery and misfortune but always leads to a consequence with the deepest meaning’.”

And:

After highlighting passages related to the manipulation of cosmic forces, of one’s ‘god’ or ‘demon’, Hitler picked up on Schertel’s assertion that ‘Every demonic-magical world is centred towards the great individuals, from whom basic creative conceptions spring. Every magician is surrounded by a force field of para-cosmic energies.’ Individuals ‘infected’ by the magician would henceforth form a ‘community’ or his ‘people’ (Volk) and ‘create a complex of life of a certain imaginative framework which is called “culture”’.223 To harness these ‘para-cosmic energies’, Hitler observed, the ‘great individual’ needed to make a sacrifice to the völkisch community.224 As we shall see in Chapter Three, Hitler seemed particularly interested in Schertel’s passages on ‘Practice’ – on wielding one’s para-cosmic energies, one’s ‘magic’, to manipulate others.225
I do not mean to suggest that Hitler had the same unqualified investment in occult and border scientific thinking as Himmler, Hess, or Darré. Hitler’s interest in the supernatural was both less doctrinaire and more utilitarian, embedded in ‘his conviction that man exists in some kind of magic association with the universe’. Hitler studied occult doctrines because they provided material for his political propaganda and manipulation of the public.226”

Goebbels exploited astrology, but he and Himmler kept astrologers on staff. “World Ice Theory” was insane, but it may have influenced military operations:

“Finally, we cannot ignore the possibility that World Ice Theory influenced major military decisions and operations.336 Hitler seemingly believed that Operation Barbarossa had a better chance of success because World Ice Theorists in Himmler’s meteorological institute had predicted a mild winter. Based on Welteislehre, Hitler and Himmler also conjectured that Nordic soldiers were better prepared than Slavs for fighting in cold weather and consequently did not equip them properly for war on the Eastern Front, resulting, for example, in the terrible loss of life at Stalingrad.337”

I have tended to think that the supernatural and occult aspects of Nazism are a matter of movies and bad fiction. Kurlander explains a lot of Nazism as part of the Nazi “supernatural imaginary,” derived from Charles Taylor’s “social imaginary.” Kurlander writes:

Based on this evidence, I argue that no mass political movement drew as consciously or consistently as the Nazis on what I call the ‘supernatural imaginary’ – occultism and ‘border science’, pagan, New Age, and Eastern religions, folklore, mythology, and many other supernatural doctrines – in order to attract a generation of German men and women seeking new forms of spirituality and novel explanations of the world that stood somewhere between scientific verifiability and the shopworn truths of traditional religion.7 Certainly no mass party made a similar effort, once in power, to police or parse, much less appropriate and institutionalize such doctrines, whether in the realm of science and religion, culture and social policy, or the drive toward war, empire, and ethnic cleansing. Without understanding this relationship between Nazism and the supernatural, one cannot fully understand the history of the Third Reich.

This is an interesting book that looks into the details of a society that has been taken over by a fetish. Obviously, there were sane and sensible people in Nazi Germany, but the people with power actually bought into dowsing and World Ice Theory and racism. This is a well-written scholarly work that sheds a powerful light on Nazi Germany.

PSB

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exhaustive study of the occult in the Third Reich. Kurlander shows how the Nazi hierarchy was very much devotees of such things as astrology, divinations, séances, and reincarnations. The Nazi were also into things like veganism, nudism, and Eastern Religions (especially Buddhism) now usually associated with the Left. The Nazis believed that the occult blood strength of the German Volk would make their armed forces invincible.

One problem I had with this book is that there was the over use of introductions. Besides the book itself, each chapter had long introductions about what the chapter contained. Thank you, just let me read it to find out. Another problem, is that Kurlander didn't address how if any resolution was reach in the Nazi ranks when one occult belief contradicted another. For example some Nazis believed in reincarnation and others believed that the souls/ghosts of the dead would rise from the grave to aid the living.

But my biggest problem was in the endnotes. Kurlander correctly points out that many Americans today believe in the occult but then states that many also believe in Creationism and that many believe that Jesus rose from the dead. So the occult and Christianity are the same.

For the sake of Kurlander and any other secularist who may be reading this review, let me eplain the difference. Christians believe in miracles i.e. thing that violate the norms of science/ nature. Miracles are by nature rare. Those who ascribe to occult beliefs such as ESP/ Tarot etc. think these things are part of nature.

[Andrew Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite an interesting albeit challenging book to read. J.R.R. Tolkien once stated in a letter 'Anyway, I have in this war a burning private grudge...against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler for ruining, perverting, misapplying and making forever accursed that noble Northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.' In this well researched book Eric Kurlander takes the reader through exactly how Hitler and the Nazis did this - bending Germanic myth and legend as well as strange pseudo-scientific fades of the time into a new body of mythology and religion for the Third Reich. A body of perverted and misshapen mythology that was used to justify the horror and brutality of the Nazi tyranny and wanton extermination of millions of men, women and children. It is an powerful lesson in how mythology, folklore and alternative truths can be wielded by a dictator to turn a cultured people into monsters - a salient point in these times. It is a bit of a tough slog at points but very well researched with many notes on sources.

[Owlseyes]

Did Hitler’s obsession with the occult lose him the war?
The Nazi war effort relied to an astonishing degree on dowsing, astrology and mysticism, as Eric Kurlander reveals
in: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/d...#

[Bill FromPA · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title seems to promise a work of exploitation, a kind of Dennis Wheatley version of history, but it’s actually a sober work of history, looking at paranormal beliefs and practitioners in Germany before and during the years of the Third Reich. The areas of particular interest to the author are esoteric societies promoting occult belief systems such as Theosophy and Anthroposophy, pagan religion, and “border science” such as astrology, beliefs I would call pseudo-science but the author uses a direct translation of the German Grenzenwissenschaft.

Under the term “supernatural”, the author includes various occult societies, “border sciences” like astrology and World Ice Theory (which seems to have had an exclusively Germanic appeal), as well as a concept he calls the “supernatural imaginary”. This last is a group of supernatural concepts taken from mythology, folklore, legend, and both high and popular culture, the details of which vary by culture and over time. This is a source on which people can draw for metaphors as well as to provide explanations of events which have no precedence in their day-to-day lives. Kurlander claims that the German supernatural imaginary provided a foundation for acceptance of many irrational concepts promoted by the Nazis as well as a group of ready-made images and ideas that were exploited in Nazi propaganda. Examples of the latter are the depiction of Jews and Slavs as life-sapping vampires on German society and the anti-Allied partisan movement promoted at the end of the war as “Operation Werewolf”.

The book does not emphasize the usual story of the Nazi rise to power and subsequent fall, from the Beer Hall Putsch to the Berlin bunker. The main events in most histories of the Third Reich are only alluded to; Kurlander's concentration on the supernatural gives his narrative a different emphasis. Reading this is like following the course of an underground river beneath a familiar landscape.

In general Kurlander deals with the supernatural as a set of belief systems that influenced Nazi policies and their reception by the public. I think he sometimes gives too much credit to these beliefs as a motivating or decisive factor in various decisions, at the expense of more common and historically documented motives such as the courtier-like jockeying for power and influence among the Nazi hierarchy, where the biggest factor in a border scientist’s success or failure might be whether his patron was Alfred Rosenberg or Heinrich Himmler rather than the official attitudes about the nature of his research.

Part 1 looks at the years before 1933. Kurlander’s thesis is that the occult beliefs that became increasingly widespread in Germany, particularly after its defeat in 1918 are not only a symptom of the irrationality that led to Nazism but an essential element in Hitler’s rise to power.

Chapter 1 looks at the German paranormal in the “long nineteenth century” (1792 – 1914), mainly emphasizing occult groups whose beliefs included antisemitism and racial theories that posited the superiority of the “Aryan” or “indo-Arayan”.

Chapter 2 covers the Weimar Republic. Kurlander sees the widespread interest in the occult as driven by extreme economic and political turmoil which traditional belief systems were inadequate to explain. He makes no mention of any influence the slaughter of WWI might have had on interest in belief systems that offered proof of life after death.

His account of the transformation or migration of the occult-oriented Thule Society into the radical political NSDAP is very convincing, tracing the funding and personalities directly from one endeavor to its successor, and showing how the nationalistic and racist beliefs of the occultists were transformed into the Nazi political agenda.

Chapter 3 is an examination of how the Nazis used the supernatural to influence the German public. There are three main areas covered:
First, the supernatural aspects of Hitler himself. Kurlander cites many contemporary commentators on Hitler’s charismatic control over crowds; though many supernatural metaphors are used, it’s not clear how much any of the writers might have attributed to actual paranormal powers. Carl Jung certainly seems to have feel Hitler embodied the German collective unconscious to a preternatural degree. The author also mentions the annotations in Hitler’s copy of Magic: History, Theory, Practice by Ernst Schertel, which seems to have provided inspiration for Hitler’s style of public speaking and reinforced his confidence in openly lying about any matter he wished.

Second, the manipulation of “Weimar horrors” in Nazi propaganda. This section briefly discusses the fictional supernatural in films and novels. An inaccurate summary of Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen

Aryan Germans in an existential struggle with evil dwarves (or Jews, according to some critics) who turned to stone when defeated.

does not give me much confidence about his descriptions of many far more obscure works.

Kurlander cites instances where Nazis used popular supernatural figures in propaganda: Jews and Slavs as invasive vampires, and the werewolf figure as a protector of German soil. An interwar paramilitary group, later incorporated into the SA, called itself Wehrwolf, a spelling I think incorporates a pun – the usual spelling is Werwolf - but Kurlander doesn’t mention this.

The main focus in this section is on propaganda novels written by horror author Hanns Heinz Ewers, though the two novels described, one a fictional biography of Horst Wessel, do not seem to contain explicit supernatural elements.

Finally, there’s the story of Jewish clairvoyant Erik Hanussen who, starting in 1930, prophesied the coming of the Third Reich and the ascendancy of Hitler, helping to create a sense of inevitability about the Nazi takeover. Hanussen had many close acquaintances in the Nazi hierarchy, including Ernst Röhm, and was a financial advisor to many of them. This circle of acquaintance may have led to his accurate prediction of the Reichstag fire the day before it happened. Amazingly, Kurlander doesn’t consider this, as it seems to me, strong if not incontrovertible evidence that the fire was a Nazi plot. Hanussen’s murder less than a month later by two SA men would seem to support this as well, though Kurlander cites his knowledge of high ranking Nazis’ finances as another possible motive.

Part 2 covers the years 1933-36.

Chapter 4 covers Nazi attempts to suppress occult beliefs and practitioners. Most occult organizations with strong affiliations to Nazi beliefs were fairly quickly folded into existing Nazi organizations, and those with incompatible ideologies or large and elaborate hierarchies, such as the Freemasons were suppressed early in the Third Reich. Beyond that, other than during occasional and short-lived periods of official anathematization, this does not seem to have been a priority. Kurlander attributes this to a strong belief in “scientific” border science among Reich elites; Himmler, Hess, Goebbels, and, to some extent, Hitler, were in this camp. Those opposed - Rosenberg, Heydrich, and Bormann – were collectively less influential and, except for Rosenberg, pragmatic rather than doctrinaire in their approach to the subject.

Though the author makes a point of official support for “scientific” occultism and condemnation of “popular” manifestations, the line between, as he admits, is not well defined. Though he doesn’t characterize them as such, many of the actions taken against “popular” practitioners seem to have been in the nature of consumer protection.

An interesting episode documented here is the temporary suppression of two lecturers who debunked psychics by re-creating their “miracles” and, in the second half of the program, explaining how the tricks were accomplished. The suppression was due to a complaint lodged with Goebbels’ department by “the Magic Circle”, which seems to be an organization of professional illusionists, though Kurlander tends to treat them at times as purported “psychics”. Though the author sees the suppression as an action inspired by officials’ inclination toward occult beliefs, it struck me as more likely being a turf battle between rival courtiers Rosenberg and Goebbels, the kind of conflict that made Nazi bureaucracy particularly inefficient and unpredictable.

Chapter 5 is on border science supported by the Nazis: astrology, dowsing, biodynamic agriculture (which Kurland relates to “blood and soil” ideology, though the praxis he describes sounds a lot like organic farming), and World Ice Theory (gets into an Atlantis / Thule mythology and sounds a bit like Velikovsky-ism). The discussion of the last brings up the interesting point that, though it was a pseudo-science cum mythology supported by the entire Nazi hierarchy including Hitler, at least some scientists still felt free to criticize and condemn it openly in the harshest terms.

Chapter 6 examines the Nazi search for a German / Aryan religion to supplant Christianity: nature worship, Norse paganism, syncretic religions combining various Eastern beliefs. Nazi praise for Islam, tactically ignoring its Semitic roots, and Ernst Schäfer’s diplomatic / archaeological mission to Tibet are described. Since both Catholicism and Protestantism claimed a majority of Germans throughout the Third Reich, I thought that some discussion of the conflicts and mutual accommodations with Nazism would be appropriate; as it is, this chapter draws a stark line between Nazis and Christians, which is very misleading.

Part 3 covers the war years.

Chapter 7 describes Goebbels’ use of astrological predictions and the prophecies of Nostradamus in propaganda to demoralize enemies, particularly the British; Kurlander says that the British considered these ineffective and did not try using similar propaganda. He also tells of a totally ineffective program undertaken by the Reich navy to locate enemy battleships and convoys using map-and-pendulum dowsing. Kurlander is hesitant to credit a similar dowsing operation with finding the location of Mussolini for a successful rescue mission, saying that most sources credit traditional intelligence sources for the find. The Nazis, however, rewarded those involved with the dowsing project who were taken from concentration camps with commuted sentences after the rescue of Il Duce. Would they have done that if they considered the project unnecessary or unsuccessful?

Kurlander also writes about the Nazi use of questionable archaeological findings and the myth of post-Atlantis Aryan migrations and conquests to justify bringing wide areas of the earth under Axis control.

Germany had a right to invade the Low Countries, Poland, France, and Yugoslavia based not on ‘natural interests’ but the ‘eternal laws recorded in the holy scriptures of the Aryans for thousands of years.

In Chapter 8 Kurlander argues that belief in border science theories led to the human medical experiments being particularly cruel and lethal in that they prescribed procedures that had no chance of being successful. He also claims that, without actual belief in the supernatural powers attributed to the Jews, the Holocaust could not have been carried out with the thoroughness and dedication that it was.

Without the supernatural figuring of the monstrous Jew, the highly technical process of genocide could never have been applied as widely or vociferously as it was.

To show that the Nazi elite actually did believe in a powerful worldwide Jewish conspiracy, he cites

It was ‘incredible that a handful of Jews should be able to turn the whole globe topsy-turvy!’ Gerda Bormann wrote in private correspondence with her husband Martin. ‘Because – as Goebbels says – we aren’t fighting the three Great Powers, but a single power that is behind them, something that is much worse, and this is the reason why I can’t at present imagine how we shall get peace ever, even if we win the war.’

Chapter 9 covers the final years of the third Reich. A widespread hope for the development of a “miracle” weapon that would turn the tide of a war that was obviously lost: anti-gravity, death rays, and lightning generators were all being researched by border scientists. (A running theme through the book is Himmler’s belief that stories and pictures showing Thor in control of lightning represented the existence of an actual weapon using lost Atlantean technology.) Only Alert Speer among the leadership seemed to be aware of the hopelessness of such dreams and counseled against both the research on such weapons and the promise of them made in propaganda.

Realizing the hopelessness of their cause, Germans embraced the mythology of Ragnarok, the noble but hopeless final struggle of the gods against the forces of evil. The only hope was that near total devastation might create a clean slate for the beginning of a long new struggle toward Aryan supremacy.

Finally Kurlander tells of two contrasting phenomena in occupied Germany. The first is the better known: the partisan initiative dubbed “Werewolf”, encouraging sabotage against the Allies and retribution against occupiers and collaborators. Here Kurland does point out the orthographic variants of Wehrwolf and Werwolf, noting that the use of the latter version indicated a direct appeal to the “supernatural imaginary” rather than paramilitary organization.

The second “supernatural” phenomenon is a sudden violent bloodlust manifested by Yugoslavian civilians when they came into proximity with a German. Described as a literal thirst for blood, the malady supposedly endowed its victims with extraordinary strength at the same time it induced a murderous frenzy. Though the bestial fury described resembled Nordic werewolf and berserker behavior, because the attackers were non-Germans they were termed “vampires”, the name of the supernatural “other”.

Kurlander closes with an interesting section telling how the various border scientists mentioned in the course of the book who survived the war continued to practice and often thrived in the postwar Bundesrepublik.

[Sara Zovko · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ne kažem da je ovo loša knjiga, možda i nije, ali ja očito nisam vrsta čitatelja koja može ovo prožvakati. Nakon stotinjak stranica gušila sam se u podacima, imenima i svemu ostalom. Puno je predznanja vezanog za ovu temu potrebno da bi čovjek mogao uživati u knjizi. Šteta, zaista me zanimala tema.

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken · Rating 2 out of 5]

Back and forth between two and three stars. Probably 2.5, but Goodreads doesn’t allow half stars, so 🤷🏻‍♀️

[b e a c h g o t h · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nearly impossible to find this book as a “captivating read”. I was, I guess, expecting more of a “hitler’s Secret Occult” exposè and was instead presented with a broad, yet incredibly detailed, history of occultism in Germany. References, quotes, and so much factual information is stuffed into these pages that you can’t doubt that the author did his research but it read more like a university text book that an interesting, captivating topic.

[Evan Kail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterfully researched and crammed full of vivid information. I ended up purchasing a hard copy so that I can return to its pages if I need to cite any source material. At times a bit dense- certainly not a quick library return. Reads like an academic paper more than a book, but I learned so, so much from Kurlander's book that I have to give this five stars. Anything less would be a slap in the face to this monumental research task he undertook. Well done.

[Grey Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative book like no other that I’ve read on tha a topic. Only thing that kept this book from being a 5 star was that the book was so scholarly that it felt like at times I had to slog through it.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very, very repetitive but a good read.

[Brandon Cormier · Rating 5 out of 5]

A intresting and disturbing look in to the ideology of Adolf Hitler and his inner circle of evil.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, not sensationalist.

[Tiny Detective · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book “Hitler’s Monsters. The History of the Supernatural of the Third Reich ”by the American historian Eric Kurlander is an extensive study of the relationship between the Third Reich and marginal, pagan mythological ideas, doctrines, and occultism. An extremely detailed and studious account of how deeply Nazism, like no other movement, flirted with supernatural thoughts and promoted them for the purpose of maintaining the power that resulted in war and ethnic cleansing.

The promotion of such ideas was aided by sociopolitical events in the early twentieth century, the Treaty of Versailles and territorial losses, millions of war casualties, the economic crisis of the late 1920s, spiritual emptiness, poverty, the spread of hunger and disease. But, as Kurlander proves, many of this concrete, unfounded, and often morbid ideas were not actually entirely new and unknown. And strong enough propaganda and a party organization led by Adolf Hitler incorporated all these old and new supernatural elements into an ideology that promised the electorate in difficult times the fulfillment of their hopes. Such a supernaturally spicy ideology was eventually accepted even with the justification of monstrous actions to which was probably easier for the folk to turn a blind eye at that relentless period.

Very methodically and exhaustively, Kurlander serves all the elements that influenced the supernatural character of the Nazi machinery, and which as a very practical foundation for Nazi politics were present in the people even before the twentieth century. Wagner’s cycle of operas, “The Ring of the Nibelung”, invented languages, texts, runic signs, to the point of fascination with werewolves, vampires and witches who represented the ancient German religion that the Catholic Church and the Inquisitors wanted to eradicate – all elements that fed Nazi thought. Reports of vampirism came from remote Slavic lands, and threats of pure racial Germanic descent and Aryan race have been known since the early 19th century through literature. Like Wagner’s son-in-law Houston Stewart Chamberlain, “The Foundations of the 19th Century,” in which the author argues that Aryans have a superior racial soul, and that monstrous Jews are the ones destroying civilization. Films such as “The Golem” and “Nosferatu” and the aforementioned literature combined with the rise of German mythology, eugenics, magic, and marginal science certainly helped spread Nazi ideas.

But Nazism will also find supernatural inspiration in esoteric orders and groups inspired by Ariosophy, whose settings included the prohibition of racially mixed marriages, selective reproduction and polygamy, the sterilization and elimination of inferior races, the mentally and physically ill, and Jews. One such racist and imperialist movement were Artamanen, whose members advocated the restoration of German racial and territorial supremacy. It was from such movements that members of the Nazi party came to power.

"The reshaping of old symbols gave Nazi ideas a domesticity that made them look less revolutionary and more prosaic."

In great detail and following the chronology of events, Kurlander reveals the supernatural inspirations that haunted the Nazi regime at its height. Astrology based on “precise calculations of the position of constellations in accordance with the National Socialist worldview” and the engagement of magicians such as Erik Hanussen, who “predicted” the fire in the Reichstag in 1933, are only parts of a larger puzzle. Radiesthesia, biodynamic agriculture as a holistic view of tillage in accordance with astrological principles and the Cosmic Ice Theory promoted by Hitler and Himmler as official science are ideas that fascinated the Nazi leadership, while at the same time Einstein’s theories were considered demagoguery. Scientifically unfounded folklore and archeology justified reaching for territory, and Nazi fascination with the supernatural culminated in the worst possible way by seeing Nazism as “politically applied biology.” In this way, experiments on humans and eugenics were justified, and ultimately the Holocaust aided by the constant demonization of the Jews.

"The Holocaust was part of a long-term pattern of European colonial violence against the racial other, reinforced and aggravated by total war, economic shortages, and contagious anti-Bolshevism. The genocidal plans of the Third Reich against the Jews, however, were more radical than the plans of other European colonizers for the ethnic other, because the Nazis relied on – and distorted – not only Darwin, Rudyard Kipling or the Bible, but also the supernatural imaginary they shared with Lanz von Liebenfels and Theodor Fritsch. Only by associating Jews with vampire parasitic, almost supernatural opponents stuck in a centuries-old conspiracy to destroy the Aryan race could the Nazis lay the conceptual foundations for killing so many innocent civilians in such a monstrous way."

This book is a comprehensive and objective study supported by an incredible amount of data. It is an outstanding contribution to the history and understanding of the events “behind the scenes” of one of the definitely darkest movements of the twentieth century. The level of expertise with which the book was written could create a problem for those unfamiliar with literature flooded with historical facts. But it’s definitely a recommendation because the depth to which Kurlander immerses himself in the topic is truly astounding.

[Dramatika · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mind blowing research on the Nazi fascination with the supernatural philosophies. You might reflect on this book with the glass of bio dynamic wine. Apparently, bio dynamic agriculture was also very much admired by the "thoughtful" monsters, who worried oh so much about the loss of the important human connection to the land. Even the heartless Nazis were worried about the raise of factory farming, which is very much the reality we have today..
From Anthroposophy to Astrology, even the sacred Tibet is not spared in this book!
If you ever visited India, you remember the swastikas everywhere, the sacred symbol stolen by Hitler, who managed to changed its wonderful meaning forever tainting it by the horrible deeds. Well, the stole many wonderful things, adapting the peaceful religions and traditions into warped ideologies to justify their crimes.

[Victoria Loalou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read with a lot of referencing to support. The author clearly did his research, but his biases came through strongly. As a spiritual person, I believe in the power and influence of occult magic, so found that the author's opinions of this being a "woo-woo" phenomenon prevented some credible links being made, for me personally. Probably an excellent read if you're not into the potential of occult sciences and energy work, though :)

[Marty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kurlander helps us to know what were and understand why and how the supernatural had an effect on war era Germany.

He is careful to state that these ideas weren't the primary causes of war but that in understanding them they help us to understand the mindset of the day.

[Hanneloes Grezel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very interesting but somewhat repetitive. The length of the book does not seem to be motivated by its content. I would recommend it for people who want to use it as a reference or are more then absolutely obsessed with the connections between folklore and Nazi Germany.

[Celestial Kreationz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read.

[Nancy McQueen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I have ever read on the subject of the Occult during WWII!

[Matthew Sparling · Rating 2 out of 5]

The information was interesting but I found the writing to be somewhat, for the lack of a better term, rambling and somewhat disjointed.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

HItler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich
Author: Eric Kurlander
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publishing Date:2017
Edition/Volume: 1st edition
Pgs: 422
Dewey: 943.086 KUR
Disposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
Esoterica, occultism, border science, witchcraft, mythology, and supernatural thinking used to justify the horrors of Nazism, This infected real science and the workings of government. This magical thinking infected the culture of pre-war and interregnum Germany. Magical thinking was used as a belief model for an entire country and lead to the downfall of a generation and a Holocaust. The Nazis bathed in the occult searching for any niche that would give them more power.
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Genre:
Religion
Spirituality
Occult
Paranormal
Ghosts
Hauntings
Supernatural
Ancient Aliens
Philosophy


Why this book:
Was expecting more of a why than a how.
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The Feel:
Way more philosophy than I was expecting.

An Occult History may have been a better title than Supernatural. Lotta philosophy. Lotta border science. More belief than fact. But no evidence of anything extranormal. Just massive numbers of sheep following a group of Judas Goats on their way to commit one of the greatest, most horrific crimes against humanity ever perpetrated.

Favorite Scene / Quote/Concept:
“...the metaphysics of dunces made possible the rise of Nazism.” Wow!

Hmm Moments:
“...a kind of religious natural science aka border science so...ancient aliens, eugenics, anti-vaccine, flat earth.” I wonder if Kurlander gave himself headaches while trying to explain all these esoteric mythical mystical philosophies from theosophy to World Ice Theory. I have to stop and shake my head clear every couple pages as he attempts to communicate the underlying philosophies that impacted the formation of occult Nazism. That isn’t an indictment of Kurlander or his writing, it’s the concepts themselves.

Border scientists and mythographers in the Third Reich...these were the bad guys in Indiana Jones.

WTF Moments:
The absorption of this Indo Aryan myth as both religion and history and its being taught in schools primed the pump for an onrushing Holocaust. Myth and parable taught as fact, what could possibly go wrong.

With all the Indo Aryan nonsense passing as real cultural history, I wonder what would have happened if the Axis had had a fourth spoke with an Indian or Tibetan fascist taking part.

Hitler claiming that Jesus was an Aryan resisting the Jews. And that St. Paul betrayed his teachings by claiming that all men were equal and contributing to the fall of the Roman Empire. The Nazis used the parts of Christianity that they wanted and tossed the rest at the feet of the “Jew Pope.” ...crypto-Christianity indeed.

Meh / PFFT Moments:
The Nazi German desire to liberate the mythic lost Indo Aryan pre-civilization fed and justified retaliation against their neighbors, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

Border science had an essence of faith or belief instead of truth and experimentation. Border science’s roots in the Nazi party and in German society were scary in their depth and acceptance.

The Sigh:
Effectively, World Ice Theory is the culturally blind leading the scientifically deaf toward the next ice satellite impact that would change and either destroy or advance the world through a culling.

Wisdom:
“Creative intuition” lurked at base in so much of this. While a creative intuitive leap can bridge logically divides, a leap with no basis and nothing to land on when it gets there other than belief is foolish. Now translate that upwards to hundreds of millions of people in an entire country.

With the Third Reich’s reliance on border science and failure to respect or understand science, and considering their successes in tank development and, very late war, jet fighter deployment, we’re probably lucky that it interfered with research and development. Imagine the Panzer, Stuka, V-1 and 2, etc, if fairy dust and Teutonic legend hadn’t been given equal standing with aeronautics, rocketry, and engineering.

Hitler saying that Germany had to be destroyed in order to be reborn was about the only truth that monster ever spoke. Of course, he lead it to the point where the only way forward was ashes.

Juxtaposition:
I guess I don’t understand the mytho-cultural romantic longing for a Fatherland that exists outside their window.

I see a horrible mirroring between German centric religion, neo-paganism, longing for a mythic Fatherland, and state worship on the one hand and American evangelicalism, scientific luddism, longing for a mythic golden age, and state worship, on the other. Makes me think the axiom, those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it.

In our Trumpian now, with ghost this, paranormal that, and ancient aliens, hollow earth, conspiracy theory cable television, this book may be a little too on the nose for the modern times we’re living in.

The occultish, Indo-Aryan werewolf battling against the Serbo-Slavic Jewish and/or Polish vampire was one of the tropes in this pseudo religious stewpot that Germany found itself boiling in between the world wars and during the rise of Nazism.

This book is full of juxtapositions.

So, the Germans of the pre-World War era played both the resist the colonizing influence of Roman Church and the evangelical Protestant church while proselytizing a cultural appropriation of elements of the Hindu and Islamic institutions with the fake Aryan racial profile. Europeans are not Aryans. If Aryans exist at all as a distinct racial phenotype, they derive from Zorastrians, Parsis, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas in India, Afghanistan, and Eastern Iran. All peoples who the prototypical German “Aryan” would consider beneath him, racist bastards.

And then, the book touches on false utopias and racial purity, both fed by an engraining and indoctrination into Indo Aryanism, educationally and culturally.

The Unexpected:
When I picked up this book, this deep philosophical look at the underpinnings of German society wasn’t what I was expecting.
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Pacing:
Glacial.

Last Page Sound:
Glad I read, but damn that was not what I expected. Way too much magical thinking and philosophy. Not an indictment of the author, the subject matter is a minefield.

Questions I’m Left With:
Did the Nazis need a conceptual groundwork to justify the horrors they were visiting on the peoples of Europe. Probably not. But it helped keep the masses quiescent and sheeplike. Were the party elite true believers in all that they were speechifying about? Or was it all a means to an end?

Author Assessment:
Anti-modern faux intellectual politicians of cultural despair who combined radical racism with national mysticism with a a future oriented, pseudo-nostalgia utopianism that revels in ludism. It’s like Kurlander was writing horror instead of a philosophical history of the culture that birthed Nazism.

Editorial Assessment:
There was a bit of repetitiveness that could have been done away with, but all in all, well edited.
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[William Fietzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book. It makes an excellent case for the paranormal's influence upon Nazi political and scientific endeavors before and during World War II. However, a disproportionate share of the author's argument relies upon dousing, a method for divining water and metal resources, and world ice theory. where ice is the basic substance for all cosmological processes. These are fringe fields even among pseudoscience advocates, which may explain their particular lack of impact and of pseudoscience overall upon Nazi political and social policy.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid piece of work with numerous foot notes and the first academic piece of work that I have seen addressing this subject in a non sensational, structured way. Possibly more directed towards academics and teachers or people who specialise in Nazi history, and I did pick this up and put it down a few times before I made a concerted effort to finish it. There's a lot to digest in here and references to other authors of important early works on the Nazis.